A Future Built on Tradition
Specialty paper and renewable energy are the pillars of the Koehler Group, which is now in its eighth generation of family management – and enjoying lasting success. The family business, boasting a well-earned reputation as a visionary company with long-term strategies, recently invested in the construction of a new site in Willstätt. So how are decisions made in this family company? What role does its long-term outlook play? How important is training for the storied firm? An interview with Board of Management members Kai Furler, Dr. Stefan Karrer, and Frank Lendowski.
When it comes to family businesses, members of the owning family are usually the ones who are ultimately in charge. How does that play out when it comes to making decisions?
Kai Furler — As a family business, we think in terms of generations – and act sustainably. But at the same time, and in contrast to entities such as corporate groups, our internal organizational structure means we can make decisions extremely quickly. In fact, there have been countless examples of this in the history of the Koehler Group. As you well know, we grew as a company at our headquarters in Oberkirch for centuries. However, after we had expanded to over 1,000 employees in the 1980s, the original premises finally became too small, so we decided to invest in a new mill in 1986. The amount invested was 210 million Deutschmarks, and the result was a state-of-the-art mill covering an area of 80,000 square meters in Kehl. The carbonless paper made in Kehl remained an extremely successful part of Koehler Paper’s operations for decades.
Then, in 2018, I made the decision to go ahead with the biggest single investment in the history of the Koehler Group – the construction of production line 8, which cost 300 million euros. And that was a crucial step, since it allowed us to tap into the growing market for flexible packaging paper offerings. Needless to say, that’s just part of the job: As a representative of the family’s eighth generation, I recently faced a further similar choice with enormous implications for us.
The Koehler Group Campus is an attractive state-of-the-art training center that is meant to deliver on Koehler’s commitment to top-quality training.
Why was it necessary to invest in a new site?
Kai Furler — We inaugurated our mill in Kehl in 1989 because there simply wasn’t enough space anymore at our premises in Oberkirch. Since then, our workforce has kept growing, and we now employ over 2,500 people at the Koehler Group. Put simply, our growth in the past few years meant we were once again facing a an already familiar situation: Production of our tremendously successful beverage coasters at our KATZ site in Weisenbach had long reached its limits in terms of space, making it impossible to grow further without taking action. Our workforce growth also means that the number of apprentices we train has increased as well. So much so, in fact, that we broke through the 100 barrier for the first time ever in the history of our family business at the start of the 2024 training year.
I can’t even begin to tell you how amazing that is. As I never tire saying, the next generation that we train ourselves will become the resources we need tomorrow. But this growth also meant that the facilities we had for our top-of-the-line training had hit their limits as well. When one considers all these factors, it was crystal clear that we needed to open a new site. The cherry on top was that, once we'd had a good look around, Willstätt surpassed all our expectations!
apprentices started their apprenticeship at Koehler in 2024 – a record that the family business is proud of.
The next generation that we ourselves train will be our resources of tomorrow.
CEO
Kai Furler
was born in Oberkirch in 1974 and is married with three children. After spending time in London and Paris, he completed a business administration degree at the Munich Business School in 1999 and then worked in various international positions to prepare him for joining the Koehler Group. Kai Furler started working at the company in 2003, becoming Commercial Director in 2007, and CEO in 2011. He represents the eighth generation at Koehler.
Dr. Karrer, Willstätt is not an unfamiliar location for the Koehler Group, correct?
Dr. Stefan Karrer — That’s right. The site in Willstätt is in an incredibly strategic location for us, roughly equidistant between Oberkirch and Kehl. And the reason we were already familiar with the town is that Beaver Paper, which has been part of the Koehler Group since 2017, already had a site in the immediate area – in the Willstätt industrial park, to be more precise. In addition, the fact that the premises have a total area of 23,000 square meters means that not only are we able to move some of the workload from Oberkirch and Kehl to Willstätt, we will also have more than enough space for further growth.
In the last two years, we invested more than 70 million euros in converting the existing buildings there and adapting them to our specific needs. We officially inaugurated the new Koehler Group site in June of this year, and around 170 employees are working there right now. Before that, and as a first step, we moved our production operations for KATZ beverage coasters there at the beginning of 2024. Then, once the final expansion stage for the site was complete, we gradually moved the new offices there in March.
We’ve invested more than 70 million euros in converting the existing buildings.
COO
Dr. Stefan Karrer
was born in Augsburg in 1965 and is married with two children. Before he became COO of the Koehler Group in 2016, he held various senior management positions in the paper industry, such as Managing Director of the Sappi Group paper mill in Alfeld. He is on the board of various professional bodies, including German paper industry association “Die Papierindustrie e.V.” Dr. Karrer gained his doctorate from the Technical University of Graz in Austria.
Willstätt opens up whole new opportunities when it comes to the production of beverage coasters. Could you go into that in greater detail?
Dr. Stefan Karrer — Demand for beverage coasters skyrocketed once again after the end of the COVID pandemic. We have broken production records on a regular basis over the last years, with instances where we hit more than 10 million coasters a day. As we were running out of space at KATZ headquarters in Weisenbach, we decided to split the value chain. We’ll keep producing wood pulp board – the raw material for beverage coasters and many other products – in the Murgtal valley region, which is renowned for its papermaking traditions. Our board machine went online in the 60s there and has been continuously upgraded and optimized since then to keep making a sustainable product from regional raw materials. Meanwhile, we moved our finishing operations for beverage coasters to our new site in Willstätt at the beginning of 2024. We set up a state-of-the-art print shop, die-cutting shop, and packing line there. And Willstätt has plenty of potential for further growth. The new printing machine in particular is delivering extraordinary results that our customers love. Not to mention the fact that the enormous amount of space available makes logistics much easier.
of total area in Willstätt means a lot of space for further growth.
Frank Lendowski, Kai Furler, and Dr. Stefan Karrer (left to right) at the new Koehler Group site in Willstätt.
Mr. Lendowsky, there are 170 employees working at the new site. How are you dealing with the increasing shortage of skilled workers in the industry?
Frank Lendowski — With a clever strategy and tons of commitment. Among other things, we’ve received the “Best Place to Learn” quality seal multiple times already, which underscores the quality that underlies the training we provide. We’re a company that puts trust in its apprentices and draws its skilled workers from that talent pool, which means that we need to continue evolving and developing. So when our existing training workshop for technical professions at our Oberkirch site reached its limit in terms of capacity, we responded very quickly, knowing that our need for young talent would only continue to increase. The new Koehler Group Campus that resulted from this is not only strategically located, it has also raised the bar. For starters, it has five times the training space. Perhaps more importantly, we invested in new machinery that will allow us to provide 30 apprentices in electronic, mechatronic, and industrial mechanic apprenticeships with the best training out there every year in Willstätt.
After we relocated our training for these technical professions from Oberkirch, we repurposed the space that became available to expand our papermaking-specific training program as well. And to give you a specific figure – in 2025 we’ll be making a multi-million investment in facilities and equipment in Oberkirch. That’s what we stand for, and that’s why people can believe us when we say we’re serious about investing in our young talent.
We’ve raised the bar with the Koehler Group Campus.
CFO
Frank Lendowski
was born in Dortmund in 1960 and is married with two children. He joined the Koehler Group in September 2010, initially as Finance Director, and became CFO at the beginning of 2011. Previously, he worked as a Commercial Managing Director for many years, leading various divisions including finance and accounting, controlling, HR, and IT at an international luxury kitchen furniture manufacturer. Mr. Lendowski has worked for family companies throughout his career.
Rethinking the work environment was one of the goals when setting up the new site.
Closed office spaces are a thing of the past in Willstätt, where the focus is on flexible workplace models instead.
The new site is following New Work practices. What does that mean in detail?
Frank Lendowski — In order for us to be an attractive employer for skilled workers, managers, and young talent, we need to rethink how we approach our work environment. The COVID pandemic in particular made “telecommuting” a household term, and we’ve responded to that development with a site that embraces a completely new approach to spaces. We’ve completely abandoned the use of closed-office spaces with a hierarchical layout, and are instead opting for hot desking and flexible workplace models. That not only makes us an attractive proposition for future employees, but also makes cross-team, cross-functional work with plenty of communication easier. In fact, we hope to benefit from greater synergistic effects as well and are looking at the new office model at our Willstätt site as a prototype for our other sites.
